financial crisis

This week in outrageous economic shorts we quote insightful articles covering the JPMorgan Chase $13 billion settlement for bundling bad mortgages and pawning them off to unsuspecting investors. The case is due to the actions of two acquisitions made by JPMorgan Chase, Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual.

Tonight's documentary is Inside Job. Made in 2010, this is probably the best documentary on the financial crisis and it also won an Academy award. It should also make your blood boil and then bubble over considering business as usual is still going on. The conflicts of interest alone exposed in this film will stun you In short it's a must see and if you have watched it already, well, see it again.

Attorney General Eric Holder, the highest law enforcement officer in the land, said he cannot prosecute the big banks because that would endanger the global economy. This is an admission the world is run by the banks and not governments or the rule of law.

Nowhere is the evidence of unbridled corporate greed stronger than in what the financial crisis did to the U.S. economy. The losses are staggering. Economic growth was killed to the tune of over $13 trillion. Homeowners lost a whopping $8.1 trillion in home values.

There is nothing more frightening than when those in charge of the economy miss something that was as plain as the nose on your face. Such was the situation with the Federal Reserve and the subprime mortgage crisis in 2007. The FOMC met on August 7th and claimed there was not enough evidence of a subprime problem.

The noise from the election machine is at 120 decibels. If you don't wear ear plugs you'll damage your hearing. Campaigns and their surrogates are misquoting statistics, rewriting history and are carpet bombing Ohio with ads and armies of campaign workers knocking at the door.

Ah, the American Dream. Go to college, work hard, graduate, get a good job, career and then you'll be set for life with high earnings, enough money to buy a home, raise a family and retire comfortably.

Oops, rewind, this isn't the Ozzie and Harriet show, it's real life. Did you know student debt is one of the few debts one cannot declare bankruptcy on, no matter what? That literally you have to be in a pine box, or close to it, to have your debt forgiven? That 53.6% of those under the age of 25 with a four year college degree or better cannot find a job?

Student loan debt is now the next great bubble, threatening the U.S. economy as the mortgage crisis did. The NACBA released a study and calls student loan debt the next financial crisis, on the level of the mortgage crisis.

College seniors who graduated with student loans in 2010 owed an average of $25,250, up five percent from the previous year. Borrowing has grown far more quickly for those in the 35-49 age group, with school debt burden increasing by a staggering 47 percent.

On May 31st, Manhattan prosecutors filed criminal charges against Abacus Federal Savings Bank and 19 employees. These are the first criminal charges against an actual bank associated with the financial crisis. This very small bank issued fraudulent mortgages, otherwise known as liar loans and sold them to Fannie Mae.

Abacus Federal Savings Bank, a small bank with a major presence in New York City’s Chinese community, and 19 of its former employees have been charged with inflating the qualifications of mortgage applicants to meet federal loan standards, a scheme that prosecutors say brought the bank tens of millions of dollars in ill-gotten fees and sent hundreds of millions of dollars in risky mortgages to the investment market.

The thing is liar loans were extremely common, so why would New York Prosecutors go after this small community bank instead of the larger fish? Politics and resources.

Bill Black in the below Bloomberg law interview says this prosecution will probably be our token sacrifice. In other words, don't expect Countrywide, notorious for liar loans and now part of Bank of America to be put in cuffs, doing the perp walk.